DISKING AND CULTIVATING. 255 



Disk with Care. Disking of alfalfa must be done 

 with care and discrimination. If alfalfa roots are 

 cut off by a disk harrow or any other instrument 

 the plant dies. Old and tough roots are not in much 

 danger of being cut off. Young alfalfa, with more 

 slender roots, is easily enough injured or killed. 

 Thus the disks should not be sharp as knife edges 

 and should be set straight enough not to cut off the 

 crowns. It is well for the owner of the field to drive 

 the disk. Dig up the land as thoroughly as you 

 please, but do not cut off many crowns. One may 

 disk and immediately cross-disk in early spring, 

 burying up the alfalfa crowns somewhat, and no 

 harm will result as they will come through pretty 

 soon. After this disking I think it much of a local 

 question whether one should disk more or not. If 

 blue grass has run in, or any perennial grass, it may 

 be wise to dig it out or it may be wiser to turn it all 

 under, plant corn, then re-seed. 



Prevention of Grass Best. As a matter of fact, a 

 dollar spent in buying carbonate of lime and phos- 

 phorus, with drainage, will do more toward keeping 

 weeds and grass out of alfalfa than two dollars 

 worth of labor spent in disking. Where plantains 

 come and weedy growths the soil is wrong; remedy 

 that and the alfalfa will smother all else. Where 

 crab grass troubles, as it does in the South, an abun- 

 dant supply of carbonate of lime in the soil will 

 make the alfalfa too much for it, unless perhaps it 

 may come very late in the season, when it is not 

 worth noticing. 



